Onakoya, Tacha Slam Lagos Crackdown On Street Children

The recent mass arrest of street children across parts of Lagos, particularly along the Lekki–Epe Expressway, has sparked widespread debate, with prominent social advocates, celebrities, and the Lagos State Government expressing sharply differing views on how the issue should be addressed.

Nigerian chess player and coach Tunde Onakoya condemned the arrests as inhumane and ineffective.

He argued that repeated crackdowns fail to resolve the deep-rooted causes of child homelessness.

Onakoya, who said he has spent eight years working closely with street and homeless children, warned that harassment and arrests only offer temporary relief and allow the problem to fester.

He noted that many of the children eventually return to the streets, having nowhere else to go.

According to him, the crisis is driven by multiple factors, including extreme poverty, failure of the public education system and broken family structures. He claimed that a significant number of the children are migrants from neighbouring states such as Ogun, Oyo and Kwara, who travel to Lagos in search of better opportunities that never materialise.

“What you’re doing is inhumane and an absolute waste of everyone’s time,” Onakoya said on X.

“A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

“This will become an even bigger crisis with time and it’s happening insidiously. it’s the very genesis of why we have such proliferation of Area boys and thugs In every corner of the streets of Lagos. We forget that no one becomes an area boy as an adult, it’s the children neglected overtime that grow up to become the thugs and area boys we complain bitterly about.”

Reality TV star and influencer, Anita ‘Tacha’ Akide, also criticised the government’s approach, insisting that the focus should be on why children are on the streets rather than on arresting them.

Tacha described the situation along the Lekki–Epe Expressway as a daily reminder of government failure, noting that hundreds of children beg and wash car windows in dangerous traffic conditions, with some sustaining injuries or losing their lives.

“Arresting them doesn’t fix anything. It only adds fear to poverty. If we were serious,” she said on X.

“You don’t solve poverty with force. You don’t punish people for surviving.

“If anyone deserves arrest, it’s the officials who looted public funds and left children with no choice but the streets.”

She urged the Lagos State Government to establish properly structured vocational centres with boarding facilities where street children could be rehabilitated and trained in practical skills such as shoemaking, fashion, photography and videography.

“The Lagos State Government would be setting up proper vocational centres with boarding homes, teach them real skills, shoe making, designing, photography, videography.. i mean, give them options,” Tacha added.

In response, the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, defended the enforcement exercise, stating that advocacy and intervention must be guided by law, data and long-term social responsibility rather than emotion.

Wahab argued that allowing children to remain on busy highways under the guise of compassion amounts to neglect, stressing that enforcement is necessary to prevent accidents and fatalities.

He maintained that Lagos State already provides tuition-free public education, including free WAEC examinations, alongside technical colleges, vocational centres and skills-acquisition programmes across the state.

“Advocacy and enforcement cannot be approached with emotion or knee-jerk reactions. They must be guided by law, data, and long-term social responsibility.

“No one disputes the reality of poverty or the dangers children face on our highways. The presence of minors on major expressways like Lekki–Epe is precisely why intervention is necessary, not why enforcement should be abandoned. Leaving children to dodge speeding vehicles in the name of compassion is not empathy; it is neglect,” Wahab said.

According to him, apprehended children are profiled, with some reunited with their parents—many of whom live outside Lagos—while others who show interest are enrolled in skill-training programmes through the Ministry of Youth and Social Development.

However, Wahab noted that the government cannot replace parental responsibility, adding that the state remains open to partnerships with individuals and organisations willing to contribute meaningfully to addressing the problem.